Flipkart's Sachin Bansal says he was removed because of 'performance'

Flipkart Co-Founder Sachin Bansal at a town hall meeting on Friday said every employee is treated with the same yardstick, and cited his performance as the reason for his being removed from the post of CEO in January this year.

Bansal's disclosure comes after India's largest e-commerce company said last month that it was laying off at least 300 people who were non-performers, leading to concerns and questions among employees.

Sachin Bansal, Co-Founder, Flipkart

Sachin Bansal was replaced as CEO in January by Binny Bansal, who was promoted from Chief Operating Officer to head the company. Both the Bansals, who are not related, are former employees of Amazon.

“Just look at who was at management six months ago, one year ago, and who is management today. It’s completely changed. Right? Yeah, I mean, nobody is here. I have changed. I was the CEO and I have changed. It was performance linked,” the Business Standard report said quoting Sachin Bansal, while speaking to employees at a townhall meeting on Friday.

Already, Flipkart has seen several high profile exits in the last eight months such as Mukesh Bansal, Ankit Nagori - a long-time Flipster and Chief Business Officer, Punit Soni - Flipkart’s million-dollar hire from Silicon Valley who headed product and strategy and Manish Maheshwari - head of seller business, the report said.

The e-commerce marketplace has been witnessing stagnating growth following intense competition from global rival Amazon over the past year and a half.

Late last month, agency reports suggested that Flipkart is sacking at least 700 employees, or over 3 per cent of its workforce, as it looks to cut cost to compete with rivals like Amazon and Snapdeal.

The number of employees who may be handed pink slips could run as high as 1,000, a PTI report said citing a source.

In February, Flipkart's rival, Snapdeal, had also placed about 200 of its employees on a 'performance improvement' notice under which they needed to improve within a month or get terminated.

The development comes as the Bengaluru-based firm is reportedly facing falling valuation after investment management firm, T Rowe Price shed the value of its holding in the company for the second time this month.

The once-booming online commerce sector in India has created thousands of jobs across the country. While most of these companies continue to be driven by investor money, concerns around profitability are being raised and many of these firms are now looking at restructuring their business model to run leaner operations.